Photos: Doing the RSA security dance

Every year, the RSA Conference is built around a historical theme that highlights a significant use, or misuse, of information security. This year's theme: ancient Vedic mathematics and a mathematical sage named Aryabhatta. Here, dancers take the stage for the prekeynote theme show.

In 499 CE, in Kusumpura, capital of the Gupta Empire in classical India, Aryabhatta, only 23, published an astronomical treatise written in 118 Sanskrit verses. His slender volume, the Aaryabhat.iiya, was to become one of the most brilliant achievements in the history of mathematics, with far-ranging implications in the East and West.

Aryabhatta, the mathematician whose work is being highlighted at this year's RSA Conference, correctly determined the axial rotation of the Earth. He inferred that planetary orbits were elliptical and provided a valid explanation of solar and lunar eclipses. His theory of the relativity of motion predated Einstein's by 1,400 years.

Dancers interpret the theme of this year's RSA Conference in San Jose, Calif. No longer just for crypto geeks, RSA's confab reflects growing worries about security at companies large and small.